This becomes a question of system understanding. For example, the family unit, which is a system. What value helps the familysystem work better, honesty or lying? If you lived in a family wherelies were common, then your system, your family was compromisingits ability to maintain that system. Lying increases the loss of energy in a system. Lying increases the chaos in a system, the family systemand thus the family loses energy which is entropy. A system, anysystem is either increasing its energy or it is losing energy. Increasing energy insures a system's survival and losing energythreatens a system... It is really that simple.

Values which increases a system's energy are values which are needed.... and that is your criteria for values.

What values increase your system energy and that is the valuefor which you strive and any values which drains your systemof energy is to be avoided.

So in capitalism, by its constant negation of human beings and their values, you decrease the energy of the capitalism system, and thus you threaten the capitalism system...…….

We can begin to see what values we should be holdingand which values we should be avoiding.

Philosophy is simply an understanding of our values and what values are important to the system in question,be it a political system or an economic system or a social system. What values will allow that system to best survive the increasingentropy that exists within the universe. For that is the next thing to understand... a system, any system must increase its energy as itsages because the system in question due to age or growth, needsmore energy to just maintain itself. As I age, I need more energy to just maintain myself as my body becomes more and more inefficient. As I age, my body loses more energy then I can replace and thatentropy causes old age. I suffer system slowdowns and failures as I grow old due to entropy.

A system, any system is either increasing in energy or losing energy, that is simply a statement of fact. So the question becomes,how do we increase the energy in our systems? One possibility is in the values we choose to power our systems.

What values are you choosing to power your system?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

Values come into conflict all the time. IQ45 values lying and dishonesty and hatredand greed and lust and his followers also valuessuch things. A system understanding leads us tounderstand that those values, lower level, animalvalues, leads to the loss of energy in a system. And we, who resist, have choosen different values for our understanding of our systems. And this leads to conflict about which values are the values that we should be following. How are we to resolve this conflictin values? Violence? The followers of IQ45 certainly dowant violence to be a deciding factor in the resolution ofthe conflict of values, but violence never solved anything. It simply postpones the resolution, it doesn't solve it.

so we must find a means to resolve our conflict as to which values are the values we should, as a people, as a culture and as a society, should be following.

One could say that our political systems are simply a means to understand what values we should be following.

Democracy is simply a system to allow people to decide the values they will live under by themselves..... Monarchyis a system whereas a monarchy decides the valuesthe people shall live under and a dictatorshipis whereby the leaders of the dictatorship decide uponthe values the people live under.

This is, in part, why I have chosen to follow democracy eventhough I believe democracy has been compromised bymoney to the point where the "leaders" no longer work forthe people but the "leaders" choose values that they havebeen paid to choose by corporate and powerful interest.

I believe that the only answer for our modern politicalcrisis is far greater democracy to the point where we have elected leaders who simply follow the will of the people,not by making decisions, but by following the decisions of the people.the answer to our modern crisis is pure democracy.

"Government of the people, for the people, by the people"

We can increase the amount of energy people put into a system by increasing the participation in their lives with increased participation in their political lives with increased democracy.

The conflict in values that we see every day can be workedout in the choices we make as a people... as to which valueswe, as a people, as a system, as a culture, decide to follow.

a system, any system is best lead by the system working as a wholeinstead of parts of the system deciding what is best for the whole systembecause the parts of the system will always choose to protect itsinterest instead of the whole system and that is what has happenedin the U.S.... The parts of the system that has bought the leadershipof our political and economic system is only concern with its part of the system and not the whole system... Thus we have the failure ofAmerica..... where parts of the system that is concerned with onlyitself is deciding upon the whole system and anything that doesn't increase the small part of the system making those choicessimply doesn't care about the whole system. That is us folks.

The few is deciding our fate based on what is best for them, notfor us. That is our modern world in a nutshell.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

We compare and contrast ourselves to other people, things,places and animals...……..

Think of yourself..... Think of you as a lone, solitary creatureall alone in the universe. There is nothing else. How would you knowyourself if you are the only thing in the universe? How wouldyou understand yourself without something to compare or contrast yourself with? To understand yourself as an being who communicates,how would you know this without anyone else to communicate with? You cannot know if you are smart or funny or wise or even tall withoutsomething to compare yourself with. It is by other things, be it people,things like chairs or walls or idea's like freedom that we understand who we are. You are not an isolated being. You are connected withina entire universe around you. We humans seem to be big untilwe compare ourselves with elephants or the universe itself. It is this comparison that allows us to begin the process of understanding who and what and why we are...….Even something like death mustbe compared to something for it to be understood.....

So you want to understand yourself? What would you compare yourselfto? If I compare myself with an ant, I look pretty dam good and if Icompare myself with Gandhi, not so good. So it is in comparisonthat we see what values are the values worth having and worthliving for and dying for? So who should I compare myself with? Should I compare myself with someone like Newton or Einstein or perhaps Spinoza or Socrates or Gandhi or Martin Luther King?

Yes, I should compare myself with the higher, more accomplishedmembers of the human race. To compare myself with higher, moreaccomplished members of the human race means I am comparing myselfto someone who has accomplished something or has raised themselvesto a "higher" level then I have reached...… I must to reach their level of achievement or accomplishment, raise my energy level. To reach someone lower in the achievement or accomplishment level, I justneed to be lazy and unmotivated. It is about the energy expendedthat allows me to reach higher or no energy expended to reach lower.

I can also use society, the polis to compare and contrast myselfwith, I can use the society at large to compare myself with. For example, IQ45 and his followers, those who believe in intoleranceand bigotry and hatred and violence and greed, I can compare and contrast myself with them and find myself in opposition to themand their beliefs. Why? Because of the values I hold are not intolerant or bigoted or full of hatred or violence or of greed.

"I hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal"

The values I hold, that I can compare with others, are values whichare about toleration and non-violence and of love. for I can comparethose values against other people and see the value of those values....

Compare for example, Hitler's value against the values of Jesus.

I find the values of Jesus to be of more societal value, whereasthe values of Hitler are destructive and lower the energy put back into society. Look at Hitler Germany and look at theresult of Jesus. See the negative energy of Hitler and the positive energy of Jesus. And I can compare and contrast thosevalues with values I have or want to hold or should hold.

It is this comparing and contrasting that allows us to orientate ourselves in the world and the universe.

What does it mean to be human? I can simply compareand contrast what it means to be a dog or a rock or another person and I can begin to see what it meansto be human.

And the values we have, I can do the same thing with values. Compare and contrast the values I have with the values of othersand see which values become important and which values become lessimportant. compare and contrast...…. this is one way to becomewho you are.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

In thinking about existentialism, one of the main idea's behindexistentialism is this notion of bad faith, self deception. We see this self deception all the time, both publiclyand privately and we see bad faith all the time both publiclyand privately. The idea of self deception is fairly obvious butthe notion of bad faith seems to require some description.

From wiki: "Bad faith is a philosophical concept utilized by existentialistphilosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre to describe the phenomenon in which human beings, under pressure from social forces,adapt false values and disown their innate freedom, hence acting inauthentically"

We see this phenomenon all the time. When in a group of people and people go around the room to ask everyone, do you believe in god?Most people will answer, yes, I believe in god, just to fit into the groupor to be part of the group. It takes courage to answer no in such a group situation. We have adapted the belief in god to fit into a situation. We act falsely if we don't believe in god and say we do believe in godto fit into some social situation.

This act of self deception occurs all the time. We see IQ45 proclaiming himself "a great president" and that is an act of self deception. We see IQ45 saying he knows more about the military thenactual military types like Generals and West Point grads. He knows these things without any actual study of militarytactics or goals or procedures. That is another form of self deception. Thinking we are something that we are not. Thinking that I am brave or smart or courageous when I am not, any of these things is an act of self deception.

We engage in self deception and bad faith all the time. One, self deception is an attempt too either to makeoneself feel better about oneself or to hide somethingfrom you own heart. Bad fait is an attempt to hide somethingfrom others, to deceive others.

Self deception and bad faith are attempts to deceive, either yourself or others.

So the question becomes, why is this understanding about self deception and bad faith so important?

Why does it matter that we engage in self deception or in bad faith?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

Now in my last post, I asked, why, why does it matter thatwe engage in self deception and/or bad faith?

It matters because the acts of self deceptions has, in part, created the age of Nihilism that we live in today.

To engage in the self deception/bad faith of our modern lives is to engagein and be part of the Nihilism that we see all around us. Nihilism is the negation of human beings and their values. To engage in self deception and/or bad faith is the negation of human beings and their values. to engage in self deception is to negate the true values or our true understanding of who we are.

I am a valuable member of society due to the fact that I exist,as a human being, I have value. But if we engage in this self deception/bad faith of capitalism, then we participate in the negation of humanbeings and their values. Our bad faith in regards to ism's such as capitalism and democracy has the effect of negating who I am and my values, as capitalism is only about one value and one valueonly, profits/money.... All other values are negated as being against"capitalistic" values, being against the pursuit of profits/money.

It is this self deception/bad faith that allows capitalism to growand flourish in our modern age. We have been deceived and we self deceive when we believe and act upon the ideal that we have three inalienable rights, upon which is "life, libertyand the pursuit of happiness".

It is this idea of the pursuit of happiness that leads us to engagein and participate in self deception and bad faith. We should be happy and so we engage in self deception as to why we are or more likely, not happy. This idea of bad faith which is the act of deceivingothers is part of this notion of happiness. If we were really honest withourselves or with others, then we could admit the truth. Few of us, if any, are truly happy. And part of the reason is the acts of self deceptionand bad faith that we engage in.

Happiness, true happiness can only occur when we have come to an understanding of who we truly are and then act appropriately. If we want to be happy, we must become who we are. this self deception and bad faith is also a result ofour failure to know thyself and to overcome and to become. To engage in our knowing ourselves, as Socrates said,we must engage in honesty and not self deception. to engage in overcoming what are the childhood indoctrinations,which are nothing more then an engagement with self deception andbad faith. and to overcome those childhood bad faith also leads usto becoming who we are and that is only possible when we no longerengage in self deception and bad faith.

to overcome this age of Nihilism means we each, individually and collectively must engage in honesty with ourselves and each other. We can no longerafford our self deception and bad faith because to hold self deception andbad faith as our models is to threaten the stability of our society, our system.

We Americans in engaging in our acts of self deception and bad faith hasendangered the foundations of our society. As dishonesty and lying alwaysendanger and threaten the foundations of any system, be it the family systemor be it the political system, or the economic system or the cultural system.

You want to "Make America Great" then we must begin with the endingof the self deception and bad faith that so dominates our society today. We must remove the president as the leader of the dishonestand self deception and bad faith movement in America and the world.

But it doesn't begin there, it begins with us. Engage in an honest understandingof who we are and what is possible and do so without any self deception orbad faith. See yourself without any self deception or bad faith. Just know,that such insight will bring about our moment of Zen where everythingis toss around, the mountains are dancing and mobile and the sea has thewaves crashing and violent and in an uproar and the river has overflowed it banks.To engage in an honest understanding of oneself can bring about great personal turmoil, but, but it is the only way to become who you are.

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

A recitation of the 20th century would include the horrors of the two World Wars and the Holocaust as given by one name, Auschwitz. We have the Great Depression and the long lasting cold war and we have Hiroshima...….. and the questionmust be asked, Where was god?

Now some might say, that the horrors of the 20th century occurred becausewe didn't listen to god, but I say unto you, the 20 century came about becausewe did listen to god. Religion has always been about us vs them. You havethe believers and you have the non-believers. But isn't Auschwitz a monumentof believers who acted against non-believers and wasn't the two World Wars foughtbetween two rival factions of believers. It isn't any one ism or ideology orfaith that created the schism that has consumed the 20th century. It is the us vs them idea that has created the massive death toll of the last century.

It is the faith inherent in the believers that cause all that death and all thatdestruction. And the evil of our times, it is about us vs them. To tear childrenaway from their parents is evil by every standard and yet it is condoned because the believers believe and victims are always easy to find when one is a believer.

Us vs them...…………

all the evil in the world has come about because of the, us vs them, understandingof the world. If you are not us, you are the enemy. You are object of hatred and persecution and violence... why, because you are not us...………

So much hate and violence because people see only two possible outcomes, us...…. them...…….those are the choices. what a small andnarrow way to see the world.... If I am not us, I am outside of the pale.if I am not us, I am suspected and demonized and terrorized... even if I looklike you and sound like you and behave like you, I am not part of us and thusI am the enemy and treated with violence and hatred and anger.

The point of toleration is to eliminate this narrow viewpoint of, us vs them.

If I engage in toleration, I no longer see people in such narrow and violentterms of, us vs them. I see people as people and people the world over look like me and act like me and talk like me. We both want to love and be loved,and we both want respect and honor and an opportunity, a chance to become something and that is true the world over...….

but if I engage in the age old game of, us vs them, I summarily dismiss you, I engage in violence against you and all because I have classified you as being different, them. If I am tolerant, everybody becomes us.There are no outsiders and no one to be violent against and no one to hate.but some of us are really comfortable with our hate and anger and greed and lustand to change would mean we would have to no longer see the world as, us vs them.

and change is hard and a whole lot of scary. but who is brave enough, courageousenough to see beyond the old failed classification of, us vs them. Who is willingto be human enough to accept all, to look beyond our minimal difference andsee the vast similarities that is the human race. How can I truly dismiss anyonebecause they have the accidental trait of birth, color, race, speech, disability orgender. Am I so wise as to proclaim myself the arbiter of what is right and normal in human beings? NO, no I am not so beyond everyone else that I can proclaimwhat is us and what is them.

Auschwitz and Hiroshima and the long cold war all demand an answer from us.the question is simple, must we continue with our understanding of the world as simply nothing more then, us vs them? Or, or do we engage in the processof expanding our idea of a human being as to be everyone, not just, us vs them.

the truth of the matter is, we cannot as human being begin our process tobecome something more until we begin to understand human beings as us. there is not such thing as them. and once we learn this, we can become who we are.

us.

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

I guess what I am asking for is a radical new understanding of what it means to be human. We must see who we are with new eyes and a new vision. The old vision, the old understandinghas failed. We see this with the immense problems that we face. If the old understanding had succeeded, then we wouldn't have so many problems. It is the sheer number and extent of the problems,that tells us that we must engage in a search for a new direction,a new vision of what it means to be human. If you think, hay, its all good because I am well off, then you are engaging in both self deception and bad faith. Any true understanding of our current situation cannot just be about how I am doing personally. It must included the overall situation that humans find themselves inand that overall situation as of right now, is bad and IQ45 policiesand welfare for the wealthy tax cuts is making a bad situation worse, much, much worse.

this is why it is so important to not engage in self deception andbad faith because it leads us to make choices based upon our self deception and bad faith instead of where our choicesshould be made, with an honest and open mind to where we areand what needs to be done. Self deception and bad faith undermines the search for the answers we need to find our path because self deception and bad faith gives us a skewered understanding of those issues we are facing.

Because we are engaging in self deception, we cannot really see the problemsand solutions that exist in any type of realistic manner. Our self deceptionand bad faith doesn't allow us to accurately understand, either the problems orthe solutions to those problems.

How can one or a collective solve a problem that they don't properly understand?

You can't. In America right now, our problems are so great and been createdby our system of economics and the political, that a tweak or simple tweaking the system will not be enough. We must have a massive, radical overhaul ofthe economic and political system if we are going to solve our massive problemscreated by the nihilism which is the basis of our economic and political systems.

We cannot allow some fake understanding of '"traditions", which is another formof self deception, to prevent us from engaging in actions that are necessary to ensure our safety as a state, nation and even species. The current isms and ideologies have driven us into a corner and no amount of tweaking will save us from this corner of nihilism and destruction thatfaces us...…..

In other words, the classic definition of insanity is to do the same thingover and over again and expecting different results. We are doing thesame thing over and over again, from electing the same corrupt politiciansto office hoping that this time, this time that they might actually do the right thing, which is remove the money from politics but they can't becausethat is what drives politicians, their goal is the nihilism of money, to doing something new by engaging in changing the system that hascreated the massive problems we have right now. We cannot do the samething over and over again expecting different results. WE cannot expectto tweak our way out of this mess. We must make radical changes if weexpect to survive into the next century.

Now one might say, Kropotkin, you are wrong...… but as usual,those who claim I am wrong won't or can't provide us with any newsolutions to our problems/issues because they want to engage inthe same old solutions, the trying the exact same solutions thathaven't worked in the past and that will not work. The doing the exact same thing over and over and over again, all the while expectingdifferent results. That is insanity.

How do we begin? by engaging in the understanding of the self deceptionsand bad faith that drives us today. The quest for tomorrow will be differentonce we have solve the problem of self deception and bad faith. How do we solve it?

By becoming honest with who we are and what is our current political, economicand social situation we find ourselves in. Become aware and end the self deceptions and bad faith that drives you.

Save the world, one soul at a time and the first soul to save is you...…..

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

Bad faith is a philosophical concept utilized by existentialist de Beauvoir and Sartre to describe the phenomenon in which humanbeing under pressure from social forces, adapt false values and disowntheir innate freedom hence acting inauthentically.

This description revolves around the idea of "adapt false values".Now how would we understand this idea of "false values"? What are the "false values" that we shouldn't be adapting to avoidbeing in "bad faith"?

As you might recall, I suggested that we are, all of us, are indoctrinated with values, imposed upon us by the family, state, church, media, culture.......If one continues to hold these values without any examinationof their usefullness which is really just their ability to increase the amount of energy in a system or improve the system in some fashion. It is in a systems understanding that values have any use or value.

To hold a value indoctrinated into you without any examination of that values use to one who has engaged in the process of knowing thyself meansif you have engaged in knowing thyself and if because of social forces, youstill hold to those values indocrtrinated into you even if you own valueshave changed because of this process of knowing thyself, then you are guilty of holding bad faith. The values we hold must, must be values wehave engaged with in our understanding in the process of knowing thyself,overcoming and becoming who you are. An example of this might be the young man who after engaging in his process of knowing thyself and discovershimself to be holding values of love, peace, charity and his family has raised thatyoung man to follow the family business which is being a soldier, the military. What if the young decides in his conflict of values between his personal valuesof love and peace and the family values of war and violence, what if he decides under social forces to hold "false values" of war and violence even though his real values are of peace and love.... that young man is engage in "bad faith".The false values in this case are the values of his family which is violenceand militaristic and not his personal values of love and peace. That is an exampleof "false values" values held by others who with the use of social engagement force one to adapt their values instead of a person engaging with their ownvalues. to hold any values that haven't been "approved" of by the person duringtheir process of knowing thyself, is false values. Only values we act upon and approve of are "true values". I say I believe in god because the group or society or the nation hold these values and I hold these values to gain their approvalis me practicing bad faith. Anytime I approve of values that are held by othersis me engaging in bad faith...… so in dating a women, and she asks, do you believe in...… and I say yes to get her to bed or to gain her hand inmarriage is me engaging in bad faith. If I don't believe in those valuesand I still give my approval to gain something, that is acting in bad faith.

So this idea of bad faith is all around us... the Politician who says one thingto get elected but act upon other values is acting in bad faith because he is not engaged in his values, acting upon his values and he is not being honestwith what his real values are, that is bad faith. We see this all the time. We see people saying and acting in a homophobic manner and yet engagesin homosexual activities is acting in bad faith.

We now see that we engage in bad faith with ourselves and othersall the time. Part of the challenge of becoming human is to overcomeour bad faith and become who we are by becoming the values webelieve in and engage with. Becoming who you are simply means youare in synch with your values and you know your values and you act uponand say those values without any interference from any social forces like family, church, state, culture, media...……..

But all of this is predicated upon one simple thing, that we engage inthe act of knowing thyself...… We must engage in the process of understandingwho we are and what are our real values are. That is the beginning of this processof finally becoming who you are...….

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

The justification of our beliefs can be as simple as my family believes it, my god believes it, my country believes it, my wife and/or children believe it... or we can turn to tradition to justify any number of beliefs, the bible says so, Aristotle says so, Newton says so, it has always been this way.....

We can also use simple faith to justify a belief, I believe in god.. I don't need evident or proof of any kind, I simple believe... faith can be used to justify beliefs.

The use of this type of justification of authority or faith or because someoneelse believes it, is really just another form of bad faith. This question of bad faith haunts us... follows us into the days and nights that follow, but,but what if you aren't haunted by the daily acts of bad faith committed by both yourself and others? If you are not bothered by bad faith, why not? ask yourself, why not?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

This question of self deception surrounds everyaspect of our lives. We try to deceive ourselves aboutevery aspect of our lives. From birth to death. We try to deceive ourselves with by our engagement or lacktherein of life. We try to deceive ourselves with our attempts tohide from ourselves with such tactics as our materialism and our refusal to publicly discuss such taboo matters as death, suicide, sacrifice, the reason for our existence both individually and collectively.

We won't embrace one of the major things that happen to all living thingsand that is death. I will die. You will die. Simple as that and no amount hiding as we so well hide, will change that fact. Why won't we talk about it. In part, we don't talk about it because people get anxious about death.I say good, a little anxiety won't kill you.... a little anxiety/death humor,you gotta love it. Anyway, the fact still remains, why won't you talk about death?

Does it make you uncomfortable, good, does it make your mate uncomfortable, good,we should be talking about things that make us uncomfortable, anxious, becausewe are uncomfortable with them and we should actually become comfortable withtalking about taboo subjects like death and the why of life. However we don't have to discuss these matters in terms of religion which is another taboo subject.

Death is a matter of fact topic because it will happen to each and everyone of us. Denial is not a river in Egypt, you cannot deny your way out of dying. It will happenas surely as puberty and old age. You cannot avoid it or escape it. One day the sun willrise and I won't be around to see it. As I am an atheist, I don't have heaven or hell, immortality or the sin of guilt to see me on my way. I die. the end. I have no afterlife to comfort me and I see that as a good thing. Becauseit helps me not take life for granted. We should be focused on this life, not the next because there is no guarantee as to there being a next life but as longas you're alive, that there is a here and now. Death is a way of focusing oneon the moment, this very current moment. You are alive, reading this. That counts for something, counts for something very important. You exists. You have choices, options to act which is freedom. You can take off all your clothesand run around the block for that is part of your options, part of your freedom. As I can barely run anymore, I won't be opting to run around the block naked,beside the town's police station is the next block over from where I live. Once you are dead, you no longer have the naked option or any other optionavailable to you. You are dead... your options, your choices have ended. To embrace death as Christians have is to embrace nihilism, for what is nihilism? The negation of human beings and their values... and what is death? a negation of human beings. Death is nihilism. and our modern age embraces nihilism as its premier ideology. Our pursuit of profits/moneyis nihilism as the pursuit of profits/money is a negation of human beings and their values. Our public budgets are moral documents and it is clear from our public documents that we embrace the concept of our society being martial, being militaristic. A huge chunk of our federal budget is devoted to defense and security. That is a an application of our values to our public budget. We put money into that we value and we don't value old people or young people or health care or nature or art or women or minorities..... we put our values into our budgetand that budget supports our nihilistic values, our martial values, our militaristic values. People claim this is a Christian nation and yet we don't support those values within our budget. We support militaristic values which are anti-Christian, as least according to Jesus. Jesus said to love one another and every aircraft carrier we buildgoes against what Jesus said.

We have abandon Jesus with our actions, now let us finish the task and abandon him with our words. We must engage in discussion aboutdeath, not in terms of a religious context, but in the natural light of the fact we are all going to die and what does that mean?

Occasionally, just occasionally, I wonder how I am going to die? Will it be quick or slow and how? Am I going to be hit by a busor just die a natural death of old age. I am not anxious when I think these things, I am just wondering. It is in the same vein of when am I going to retire, at this point never, anyway, where willwe live, what will my life be like once I finally retire? Questions aboutdeath fit into the same category as these questions and they don't causeanxiety or make me anxious..... I am just thinking about the future.

I am 59 and death for me is far closer then age 30. I wonder, is death just like falling asleep.....

"To sleep, perchance to dream, ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life"

I ask the question, what happens when I die... and I don't feel anxietyor fear in asking that question, I am just wondering.

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

I am sentence to death. We all are. This is a statement of fact. I am "sentence" This is a fact, a biological, unescapable, inevitablecertainty fact of life that I am "sentence" to death. I will die. so if I commit a crime and I am "sentence" to death, it becomesa question of not if I will die, but a question of when. I should be allowed to then, if "sentence" to die from a crime, to be able to choose my own method of death. I can choose to partake in Hemlockif I choose to, and why? I am "sentence". So I can still have the choiceof method. I can leave this life with a sense of dignity. But one might argue,a "sentence" of death by the state must involve no choice, it leaves upto the state as to the method. If I commit suicide in prison and "escape" the hangman noose, I am accuse of "escaping punishment" and yet the endresult is exactly the same. What does it matter if I kill myself or that I swingat the end of the noose? How does that matter? It comes down to the how and means, not the if, for I am already "sentence" to death.

so what does it matter if I choose to end my life on my own terms as indeath with some sort of dignity. I am still going to die. We are left withthe how and means. Personally, I have many years left of life but no matterhow many years that is, the end will be the same, no matter what I do.

Committing suicide is considered a crime and yet, yet I will still die. How is the when, a crime? I am free and in my freedom, I can chooseto determine my when, my time to fulfill the "sentence" that all humans are faced with. Christian morality has taken away my freedomto exercise my freedom to "when" my sentence will be carried out. Why should religion determine to when I decide to carry out my "sentence"?

For our laws are based upon religious constraints and not upon the basis of our freedom. I am free to act but my actions need notbe a crime if I exercise my right to decide my "when".

And this becomes the point.... my actions to commit suicide isconsidered a crime, but why? Religious concerns only.

My "sentence" will be fulfilled no matter what the state says or does,the only question becomes "when". And since when, does time become a crime?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

How was your attitude toward life determined? Bychildhood indoctrinations and how is your attitude toward death determined? By cultural considerations,which is to say, indoctrinations. The same forces that create our attitude toward life, the same myths, prejudices,isms, ideologies, habits, superstitions, biases that form your childhood indoctrinations also create your attitude toward death.

And for most people in America, those biases are religous biasesand myths and so we think about and understand death by those superstions, religous superstitions.

And how do we overcome our childhood indoctrinations? By knowing thyself and by overcoming and by becoming who you are...and the same is true about our childhood indoctrinations about death. We must first know thyself and then we can overcome and thenwe can become who we are by becoming those values we have discover to be us, truly us. And the same for our values aboutdeath...... We must overcome our values, our understanding about deathand reevaluate what death means to us and what are its "values".

We cannot allow, let our childhood indoctrinations decide what ourunderstanding of death is...……...How do we overcome our values of death?

First of all, we expose our values and understandings into the light. we speak about and wonder about such things that have been hidden forfar too long, life and death and what it all means?

Then we begin to wonder what death means to us, what valuesdo we have about death? How are we to face death? That experience we shall all, one day, experience.

What does that mean to you?

What does death mean to our culture, our state, our systems?

What does death mean both individually and collectively?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

But Kropotkin, why are you being so morbid? Why are you thinking of death? are you suicidal or have cancer? Only "sick" people think of death.

I am 59 and have no illness of any kind and I don't intend, at least not untilmy facilities become impaired, to kill myself.

So why death? Because death is an experience all humans/living things mustgo through. What are the only guarantee's in life? Death and taxes. Old joke.....

Anyway, how are we going to face death? With denial, treating it like a taboo?

Death must be faced as it is one of the fundamental experiences of life. To live is to die.

And so how can we approach death? Possibly with the Kantian-Kropotkinquestions..... What can we know? What should we do? What ought we hope for? What values do we need? should we expend energy on it? I can't remember the otherKropotkin questions. Anyway, what can we know about death? not much. What should we do (about death), what ought we hope for, about death? What values should we approach death with? Should we expend energy on death?

We must approach death with the same questions we approach life with, fordeath is an essential experience of life.

So what do we hope for, what ought we hope for in death?

For some, death is a second chance, in death we shall receive the justice we should have gotten in life. "The meek shall inherit the earth".

For some, heaven is a place where we eternally contemplate god, but thisgoal shows how deeply Greek philosophy infiltrated the Christian religion for this eternal contemplation is what the Greeks philosophers thought was the goal of life.

For in the answer the question, what is the goal of life, lies the answer to the question of how we approach death. Because the Christian thinks/feels that this life is preparation for the next life. This life is a testfor the next life and that makes this life far less important. All eyes, all actionsare shaped for entry into the next life and not about this life. Thus the Christiannegates this life in favor of the next life. This Christian form of nihilism hashas shaped our understanding of life for the last 2000 years. For Christianity has been carried into all 4 corners of the earth and thus has affected/infectedall the earth.

We have been infected with the Christian viewpoint that makes life less important then death and the eternal contemplation of god, thatwe cannot, at least in the west, escape that viewpoint. It is a part ofthe childhood indoctrinations, the myths, habits, prejudices, biases,superstitions that we must come to understand in our quest to know ourselves and then we must overcome those indoctrinations and then we can discover our true values and when we actupon our true values, not our childhood indoctrinations, thenwe have become who we are..... not until then...…

As I am an atheist, I have, at least I am aware of my childhood indoctrinations, but I have become aware of them... but mostpeople due to their childhood indoctrinations, pay lip service toChristians values which are an attempt to get to heaven, as heaven is the goal, not life as lived......people offer up lip service but have no real commitment to Christian values. People just say they are Christians without any attempt to be Christians. Social forces require people to proclaim allegiance to the Christian religion, butfew if any actually practice what they preach and this bad faith is, inpart, what is wrong with America. We practice bad faith as official policy.

to begin the philosophical process of becoming who we are, we must first become aware and then we must overcome, then and onlythen can we, as a people, as a country, become who we are...………

As death is tied up into religious attitude, we must engage with death in a religious manner, at least at first.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

I have ask this question before but with a different focus, today I ask, what is worth living for AND what is worth dying for?

And the dying for is the part I wonder about.

What values are worth dying for? For many, values worth dyingfor are faith, country and love. I would gladly sacrifice myself if itwould save my family and that is love of family. Would I sacrifice myselffor country? For me, that become dicey because I believe that the notionof country is an artificial one. The very concept of a "Nation" is a false one because boundaries are simply lines in the sand waiting to be written and rewritten with every passing tide. We don't have fixed demarcations inscience or philosophy or between the boundaries between countries. we pretend that the lines between countries are forever and they are not. The boundaries between say, France and Germany has been written and rewritten hundreds of times and I suspect they willget rewritten a lot more times over the years to come. So for me, national considerations are less important thenthe natural affiliation humans have for each other and the affiliation life has for life. When we see a human being, we shouldn't see a American or a black person or a Jew ora disable person or a women or a tall person. We should justsee a human being, nothing more and nothing else. It is upon that basis that we should form a more perfect union, that we are human beings and we have inalienable rights because we are human beings and that extends to all life.....

We are part of the big picture we call life and all life has inalienable rights because it is life. Life has the right to be itself. Life has the right to engage in those things that evolution has sown into our souland our blood and our DNA. The lion that attacks the deer is simplyfollowing its genetic code, its DNA and we should, despite our feelings toward the cute deer, we should allow the lion to follow its genetic coding. We too are coded and we too mustfollow our genetic coding, but because we are human beings,we can overcome our genetic coding and become who we are...…

which is discovering which values are worth dying for?

and we come to the last notion I raised about values worth dying for and that is faith. Now some believe that in the act of faith, that faith is worth dying for.... Some think that the values of faith,of worshiping god is worth dying for.... I do not.... But whyis faith worthy dying for? What makes the faith one has in god worth dying for?

I have asked the question and you must seek your own answer,what makes faith worth dying for?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

In reading this morning, I came across this quote and I foundit interesting to say the least, talking about philosophy:

"The finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct"

Much of what passes for discourse in almost any format, including this one, has the listing of bad reasons for what we believe in our gut, for what we think (or as the case maybe not think, just feel)….

I can think of Kant for example for whom this is true. But what we have called instinct here might also be those childhood indoctrinationsthat we haven't yet be able to overcome and make us who we are.....So we spend a whole lot of time defending our "instincts" or our childhood indoctrinations with bad reasons/bad arguments.

"I believe liberals are destroying this country"

and a conservative may actually believe this but it is really a reaction to instincts and our childhood indoctrinations, andthe conservatives defend their instincts with bad reasons/arguments.But the arguments they use are not logical, rational or based on facts.....the argument presented by conservatives are emotional, instinctual arguments not based on reality or facts...….

"God exists" is a statement but it is a faith based, emotional basedstatement with no facts supporting it, but a whole lot of bad reasonsare induced to attempt to prove the existence of god.

God is defined as "that then which nothing greater can be thought" St. Anselm.

If the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exists in reality

Or the Descartes idea, that god's existence is immediately inferable from a "clear and distinct" idea of a supremely perfect being.

Many a bad reason or bad arguments have arisen from this dubious propositionthat because we can think it, it must exists...……..

So what bad reasons do you use to justify your instincts?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

The "modern" problem is simple, we have mistaken our"instincts" our childhood indoctrinations as reality and they are just internal impressions we have of reality, notreality itself. We have mistaken what we think is reality,with what is reality..... conservatives believes that a man who is born evil, will remain evil his entire life. Leopard can never change its spots and an "evil" person can never.... but the belief of the conservatives that men cannever change is simply wrong because we see people changing allthe time... We change daily as we go from birth to toddler to child to pre-teen to teenagers to young adults and then adultand then middle age to senior citizen.... we are the epitome ofchange in who we are as human beings. I maybe "evil" today, but I might act with courage and honor tomorrow. For all possibilities exists within each of us. It is simply a question aboutwhich possibility do we choose to be today. But we begin to seethe question of our time is really one of believing that the "reality" inour head is the reality that is "out" there. For us philosophers, the question becomes how do we begin to see reality, us, clearlywithout the baggage of our "instincts" and our childhood indoctrinations. For "instincts" and our childhood indoctrinations are just that, baggagewhich holds us hostage and not allow us to being able to see our worldclearly and fairly. Our "instincts" and childhood indoctrinations are baggage which keeps us from seeing or understanding the world as it is. Instead with "instincts" and indoctrinations, we see the worldas viewed by those "instincts" and indoctrinations. And then we find bad reasons or hold bad faith to justify those "instincts" and/or indoctrinations.

the passage from birth to death is one of clearing away the baggage of the ism's and habits and indoctrinations and biases and myths and prejudices that we are inundated with from birth. To clear our mindsof all that crap is the goal of philosophy and psychology.... which is whyin some ways, they are the same discipline with just slightly differentemphasis. The goal of philosophy is not to clutter the mind with differentidea's and thoughts, but to make sense of the idea's and thoughts that we have. It is not originality that we seek, but clarification of thought. We spend our timereducing and making clear the thoughts that we have. We are doing away with"instinct" and doing away with our childhood indoctrinations and making clearin our minds what our thoughts really are.

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

In the first half of modern philosophy, the problem was one of knowledge, from Descartes to Kant....

And after Kant, the problem was systems, political, economic,social and cultural.

and today we as we are still in the wake of the systems problems, we have yet to discover what is the nature of our problems.....

But perhaps the problem to be faced is the question of moralityor perhaps the question of becoming or maybe the question is how do we not only philosophize but how do we then act upon that philosophy. How do we turn philosophy into action?

Perhaps a return to ancient philosophy, both Greek and Roman philosophy was how am I to live this philosophy I have chosen. Philosophy was nota intellectual discourse but a way to live. You studied the Stoics becauseyou wanted to live your life by Stoic philosophy. You followed Plato and then you live your life by the basis of what you learned from Plato. It wasn't just an intellectual activity. It was meant to be lived. The engagementwith philosophy wasn't abstract but physical and immediate. You felt it becauseyou lived it.

Perhaps that is the question of our times?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

What is that? is it science, literture, poetry, philosophy, art, math?

0

What is this? How would you classify this? it could be science for science does use the 0 for many thingsand it could be math for math uses the 0 for many things or it could be art or philosophy or history?

How would we know?

by creating a story about the object in question.

a story or perhaps creating a category for the 0........

how would you understand 0 or / or the sentence, the sun moved through the sky with its ongoing yellow glow.

How would you go about understanding those things.

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

Philosophy means the love of wisdom but wisdom isn't about love, the pursuit of wisdom isreally the pursuit of doubt. The Greeks believed that the start of philosophy was in wonder. I disagree. What wecall philosophy is not about wonder or love but about doubt.

All science, all philosophy, all history, all social studies beginin asking, I doubt that the "common sense" vision of our society isright and I doubt the conventional wisdom. The philosophermust stand in opposition to their times. The great philosophers were prosecuted and attacked and censored not because theyworking within the conventions of the time, no, oh no, theywere prosecuted because they were against the conventional wisdomof the times...…..

Think of Socrates who was jail and executed and Aristotle whofled Athens saying, "I will not Athenians to sin twice against philosophy". St. Thomas Aquinas who was censored by the churchfor his writings. Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake in Romeby the Roman Inquisition and Tommaso Campanella who was confined forhis heretical views in opposition to the authority of Aristotle and spent27 years imprisoned in a castle and of course Spinoza who wasexcommunicated from the nation of Israel for his views on god. and a wide variety of philosophers have been attacked for having opinions contrary to the society at large and this includeseveryone from Descartes to Nietzsche.

It is not from certainty that leads us to wisdom, for one with certainty already think they have wisdom and knowledge even if they don't.

Doubt, a philosophers friend.

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

Religion and philosophy match each other in thatthey deal with values. But they also match each other inother ways. Both religion and philosophy has a problem. You have two kinds of religion and two kinds of philosophy.

One kind of Religion is the easy comfortable, no risk religion and one kind of Religion is the hard, dangerous, risk religion.And the same goes for Philosophy.

But what does this mean? Most people believe in god but theydon't live that belief. For most people, the belief in god doesn't entail any great effort, risk or challenge. For most people, they are more passionate about fast food chains then theyare about god or are more challenged in their belief in their favorite football team then in god. For most people, their belief ingod is simply a formula just spoken without commitment or any attemptto actually understand or even live in their commitment to god.

I think mustard is the condiment of choiceI favor baseball over footballI prefer summer over winterI believe in godthe weather is nice today. I like The Who over the Rolling Stones. I like Wendy's burgers over Burger King

All of these statements have the exact same value to most people. The belief in god ranks no higher then what is your favorite musicalband. The two statements, I believe in god and what is your favoritemusical band, have the same value and passion and commitment and the same easy, comfortable, no risk belief in.

When most people say they believe in god, they could be talkingabout anything they have a belief in... I prefer dogs over catsand I believe in god is at the same level of passion and commitment.

And the same goes true for philosophy, I believe that Nietzsche is correct about ancient Greek philosophy, much more so then Heidegger. This statement is said with no more enthusiasm then ordering a hamburger and with no more enthusiasm thenone says, I believe in god.....

We have no engagement with either religion or with philosophy.Religion and philosophy are simply idea's, beliefs, simple mindlessrecitations of formula's that have no power or effect in our lives.

We hold both religion and philosophy as sterile words thatmean nothing in our lives. This is what Kierkegaard was fighting against. Our engagement with religion and philosophy is justskin deep and has the same intensity as one ordering fries in a fast food place.

It seems to me that if we engage in either religion or philosophy,we should have a deeper engagement with our subject matterthen just passively speaking about them. I prefer Locke over Hume.I rather have curly fries over French fries. The discussion over curlyfries may get more intense and have much more passion and commitmentthen any discussion about Sartre or Locke or Hume or more passion thenany discussion about the nature of god or why I believe in god.

If we are serious about either religion or philosophy, thenwe must be ready to engage, I mean really engage with religion or philosophy. The value of religion or philosophy comes from the engagement we have with them. The engagementI am talking about is not just reciting words that have no resonance with us. I am talking about hold a religion orphilosophy and engaging with it with all your heart and head. We must begin to engage with religion and philosophy as a way of life. I hold certain philosophical beliefsand I must engage with those beliefs as a way of life. I belief in non violence. I must act in accordance with my philosophical beliefs. I must not engagewith violence. Religion and philosophy are ways of life. We not only hold these idea's but we live them. We act upon our philosophical and religion beliefs as our guidelines in our actions. For most people, they have beliefs and they have actions, but thetwo shall never meet. We act and our beliefs areseparate from those actions. the two don't impact each other,the two, action and beliefs, don't engage with each other,the two don't interact with each other..... They are two distinctand separate entities...…. But they should engage with each otherand interact with each other and inform each other. But theydon't... we hold actions as one complete and distinct entityand we have beliefs as another completely different entity and the two don't engage with each other.

Religions and philosophy should be ways of life and instead theyare formulas we recite but have no engagement with.

Why won't you engage with your beliefs as deeply as you engage with your favorite food or you favorite sports team?

and engagement requires, demands your full and complete effortto live your live as your beliefs demand you to live your life.

We are lacking in this engagement with religions and with ourphilosophies. they are simple words to udder and they have no connection to who we are.... so either engage or release those mindless formula's that you hold.

to become who you are requires you to commit and engage with your values regardless of the cost.

So what values are you willing to commit to and to abide by and to live within and engage with?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

As I watch my fellow citizens, I don't see the struggle of soul thatI went through for years, the wrestling with my soul to discover who I was and what was my place in the universe and that I engage with even today.

We take our schooling, jobs and our career and our families as some excuse toescape our engagement with our souls. We don't engage with those questions that should drive our engagement with ourselves. The average person doesn'task themselves if about who they are and what are their possibilities or what is the meaning of life or what does it mean to be human?

The truth is the answer these questions drive our other actions. for example, is being human about the capitalistic vision of lifewhere the point of life is the materialism that America is known for.

To answer this, we must understand what is really important. We must engage with who we are to discover that materialism as an ideology is a failure. It is unsustainable as as a way of life. We cannot maintain our American way of life.It is as simple as that... but that leaves us the question of what is thenext step and no one is thinking about that. As we understand history, we humans simply move from one situation to another without any thought as to the consequences of one situation to the next. What is neededis the human engagement with our future. In other words, we must work toward our future as a choice. We must decidewhat is our future path and then work toward that. The future isno longer just an accident of random forces, but the future becomes a choice. We decide what kind of future we want and we work toward it. It is not an individual choice but an collective choice. We don't needto have an unanimous decision as to what our future is going to be,we can move on with a majority decision. For that is the essenceof a democracy, decision are not unanimous, but majority based. should we deemphasize our dependence on the GNP and the materialismour society is based upon. Yes, but we should have a choice as to whatdirection our society takes. The decision as to what direction takes oughtto be a bottom up decision, not a top down decision. And we can nolonger allow minorities like the 1% decide what our choices and decisions are.

We decide as we are the majority. Let us take our political system at itsword and begin to act upon it as a majority. In other words, if the majoritydecide to allow guns and the NRA to dominate our lives, so be it, but ifthe majority decides to remove guns and the NRA, then we must abide by it.

But who thinks this way? who thinks about the future that should be created, notonly individually but collectively, together. The answer lies not only in our individual choice but in what we choose collectively as to what future we shall have.

And that is the point, we are linked and we cannot to continue thinking individually, but we must begin to think in terms of our actions within a society, within a collective. Will my action help or harm the society I live in. That becomes the new norm of how we think about our actions. It is not enough to engage individually, but we must begin to engage collectively,as a society, together. How will my actions affect you and how will your actions affect me. We begin to rewrite what it means to be a human being inour modern society. We become responsible for each other as a choice,not as it is now, whenever we think about it our responsibility. We must hold human beings to a higher standard as we live in a society that is as complicatedas our society has become. It is not enough to be responsible for just me, I am also responsible for my place in society and that means we all becomeresponsible for society and its actions. We cannot allow the state to speak and act for us without holding the state and ourselves responsible. If the state, as our nation has done, bombed innocent civilians,then the state and us, must be held accountable. If the state takesit upon itself to act in our name, then the state must held responsible and we must be held responsible. The war in Iraq which has cost millions of lives is our responsibility as we are the citizens in whosename the war was fought for.

If we as private individual are accountable for our actions, then the leaders of the state must be held accountable. The notion of the modern world that we must engage with is responsibility. Being held responsible for our actions individually and, AND collectivelyis the modern understanding of our engagement with our society/state.

But who ask themselves these questions?

The modern tyranny of the economic has taken awayour modern rights and this must end. If we want to becomewho we are, we must end this economic tyranny that exists.but who thinks of such things?

do you struggle with your soul as to who you are and what is your place within society? do you engage with what our society is and what it ought to be? do you engagewith your soul?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

As I work in the grocery business, the week before Thanksgiving is hell week. I work long, ugly hours withmean, rude customers. This year, I also work on Thanksgiving day, all day. Now, advertisers and the media make claims about this week as to how this is the most "wonderful" time of the year,but the reality is it is "wonderful" depending upon your particularsituation. Your situation might allow you to think how "wonderful"this week is, with family and food and football. But for millions, every week and every week is a challenge to families with limited resources. As millions are living from paycheck to paycheck and one incident could cause a family to go into debt or suffer to the point of being unable to put food on the table. The idea that families are to blame for their situations is simply not true given we are involved in systems, all of usare in vast number of systems, and sometimes one part of they systemcauses massive disruptions in our lives. If we are part of any number of systems, then we are involved together within the systems. A failure inone part of the system affects all of us in that system, but not only that system, but in other systems. So if the economic system is failing, that affects a vast number of other systems. And that is part of the problem here, we have an economic system which is failinga vast majority of those who exists within that economic system.In other words, the capitalistic system only rewards those atthe top of the system and damages the other 99% of us.

How can a system be considered successful if it damages most of its participant in that system? The numbers are quite clear, the 1% has appropriated all of the wealth created over the last30 years and has left nothing for the rest of us.

Unless we have a fair and equitable system, we run the risk of so damaging the vast number of people within the system and by doing so, collapse the system. A system, any system cannot function if the vast majority of the system is punished orunable to be rewarded in a system. Our system, the capitalisticsystem is designed to reward only those at the top and leave the rest in chaos and poverty and that means people will not engage in or be part of a system that doesn't reward themfor their work. We have a vast number of people who have no interest in being part of our current system because it doesn't offer them anything or offer any incentive to be partof the system. These people have been left behind and thatcauses a drag on the system. We must engage them enough torejoin active participation into the system.

Because there is no point to engage in our current economic systembecause there is no benefit to do so. You are working yourself to death and suffering from alienation and for what? the rightto sink into poverty and living from paycheck to paycheck.

The answer is justice which is another word for equality. to be just means we treat everyone equally. And our economic AND political system do not treat people equally,which means our economic and political system is unjust. why work in a system that is so evidently and clearly unjust? I don't see the point and you shouldn't see the point.

so what are we to do? We must create a system which is justand equal. As the capitalistic system isn't just or it isn't equal,so it must end. simple as that. Our engagement must be with justiceand equality and our current system fails to do that.

So this becomes a question of values. What values should an economic and/or political system have?

I say justice and equality must be part of the major values any economic and/or political system. Without those values inany economic or political system, there is no point in being partof that system.

So what values should an economic or political system have?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"